Rosebud Boys
by Vixray
Summary: if he's not your typical "chosen one" story, then he doesn't get a typical happy ending. \\ set twenty years later \\ for danielle
1. Chapter 1

_**for danielle,**_

 _ **and disclaimed.**_

* * *

BAZ

Sometimes I think about Simon Snow. I let him into my head bit by bit: first, the feeling of my hands over him, tangled in his hair, molded into his palm, fingers brushing his tawny skin in circles, eyes scouring his back, counting for moles. Then, I remember our kisses. The one in the flaming wood that began everything, the one that lasted through the night, then the one while dancing, then the one when both of our smiles are showing through and it's only the sound of teeth clicking on teeth, and then… and then the one that burned everything away.

And then, I'm crying because I meant to block that last one out, but it came rushing to the surface too quickly, and it smothered everything else.

And now I can't see.

And I miss him.

I miss him so much I want to die.

I mean, I never really expected the "once upon a time—happily every after" thing. I figured that if the "Chosen One" stuff didn't really work out for Simon, then the fairy tale ending wouldn't either. But I never expected this, either. Whatever you call _this_ , anyway.

Emptiness?

I don't know.

.

" _Baz—Baz?" says Simon. "I… I talked to Agatha today."_

 _I'm reading a book (it's truly enticing, really), so I only roll my eyes without looking up. "Good God. What for?"_

" _I really don't know." He sits down beside me and worms his hand into mine. "I just… I haven't heard from her in a while, so I thought, you know. I wanted to see where she was."_

" _Where is she, then? At the bottom of some snake pit?"_

" _No. She's in California."_

 _I look up from my book momentarily, finger marking my place. "California?"_

 _Simon bobs his head. "Apparently she has a bunch of Normal friends, and she sounds really happy, except, maybe, she drinks a bit too much. Anyway, I asked her how she was and why in the world she would abandon her magic, and you know what she said?"_

 _I squeeze his hand gently. "No, Snow. You're the one who talked to her, remember?"_

 _He bites down on his lips and furrows his eyebrows so deeply that they almost touch, which is his usual reaction whenever I call him Snow._

" _Right," he says. "Right. Well, she told me she had escaped. She'd never felt freer in her life, she said. She was doing what Lucy had done."_

" _Well, who's Lucy?" I say impatiently. Honestly, it takes forever to wrangle some story out of Simon._

" _Her Cavalier King Charles Spaniel."_

" _What?"_

" _Well, she did name her dog Lucy, but she named it after some girl who ran away from the magickal world," Simon explains._

" _Now, why would anyone want to do that?" I ask. "Other than Agatha, of course."_

 _Simon shrugs. "I asked her about that, and she told me that Lucy used to be the Mage's girlfriend."_

 _Now we're getting somewhere. "The Mage had a girlfriend?" I say, astounded._

" _Apparently," says Simon._

" _Why'd she leave?"_

" _Agatha said…" He takes a breath and starts again, "Agatha said that she was pregnant with the Mage's child, so she ran away to hide them both."_

" _Lucy? Or Agatha?"_

" _Lucy."_

 _I start to laugh; I can't help it. "Ha! No one likes the Mage, not even his girlfriend. Imagine that: Somewhere, some Normal kid in the world—actually, probably in California—is walking around, not knowing that the most disgustingly radical mage ever to exist in this world was his father. And his mother…" And then, I realize what all this means, and I shoot to my feet, gripping Simon's hands as tightly as I can. The book falls to the floor. I've lost my place. "No, no, no, no, no, Simon!"_

" _Yes," he says simply. His eyes are forlorn._

" _That's not what this means!" I yell at him._

" _Then tell me what it does mean, because I can't think of anything else." His voice is strangely croaky and deafening. I've never seen him like this before. For a moment, I think that he'll explode, but then I remember—_

" _Agatha could be wrong," I tell him fiercely; I almost say the words with magic, but that would be adding grease to the fire. "Agatha_ is _wrong. Who did she hear that from?"_

" _Penny's mum." Simon looks down at our hands. "She and Lucy were friends at Watford."_

" _No," I say again because there is nothing else to say. "No. This doesn't change anything."_

" _This changes everything, Baz," Simon says, "and you know it. I'm not the Chosen One. I never was. I'm just a Normal that the Mage used as Tupperware for his lunch."_

" _Simon. Simon," I say his name as tenderly as I can, moving my hands up his arms, to his shoulders, and back down again. "Simon Snow. You are not a Tupperware container, and you know it. You're not even five trillion Tupperware containers—you're more than that. And you know you have more in you than the Mage's lunch."_

" _Except I don't now, do I?" His eyes suddenly blaze, and he slings my hands away. He stands and he towers. "I have nothing. I am nothing. I'm not even a mage!"_

" _You are a mage, Simon." My hands are flying, touching him, holding every part of him. I don't want to let him go. "You will always be a mage."_

" _Last time I checked, you had to have magic to be a mage."_

" _You do have magic! You have a tail and wings!"_

" _Yes, and some people have three eyes and seven fingers!"_

" _That's not the same thing!"_

" _It is if they're all equally useless!"_

" _Simon—"_

" _I can't even fly!"_

 _(It's true; his magic let him fly, the wings were for show.)_

" _Simon—"_

" _I shouldn't even be here. I shouldn't be with you, Baz. What's your father going to say when he finds out? What's Fiona going to say?"_

" _We're not going to tell them, obviously!"_

" _They'll find out somehow. They always do."_

" _Simon—"_

" _Your gates don't open for me! The Watford gates don't open for me! Our old dorm room didn't open for me—"_

" _That's silly. Different people live there now."_

" _I'm sick of trying! I'm sick of waiting! I'm sick of being pitied and hushed like a little child! And you're the worst, Baz—"_

 _I kiss him. It's really the only way to get him to shut up. It's messy, this kiss is. It's all tongue and teeth, and Simon is still trying to talk. I think about spelling him silent, but I just push him down onto the sofa instead. He groans under me, still trying to struggle. I stick my tongue further into his mouth, and he gradually goes limp, relenting. And then, I do something terribly wrong._

 _Maybe I'm just thinking of the time we sat on my bed at our room in Mummer's House and Simon fed me his magic and showed me the stars, because I let some of my magic slip (I don't know if it's an accident or if I meant to; time spent with Simon Snow often passes like a dream, and time spent kissing Simon Snow is even more uncertain). And Simon feels it, no doubt. It's probably a shock, or a burn, or something equally betraying, but it shoots down the line of my body like a flame to gasoline, and it feels good, honestly, and I can feel him, his magic, for a split second, clinging to mine._

 _And then, Simon throws me off of him. He's breathing hard. I'm breathing hard, and it's awhile before either of us can speak._

 _Simon manages it first: "What was_ that _?" he snarls._

" _I didn't mean to do that. It was an accident, I swear!"_

" _No. You tried to give me some of your magic. I felt it."_

" _I didn't mean to. It just… slipped out."_

" _When are you going to stop feeling sorry for me?"_

" _Never!" But that's the wrong thing to say, and I know it as soon as it comes out of my mouth._

 _He growls and whirls away, standing up, his tail lashing me in the cheek._

" _Simon!" I shout._

 _He storms away, out of the house to the driveway where he's parked his car._

" _Simon!" I start running after him._

 _He starts running. He makes it to his car and jams the keys to the ignition. It starts fitfully, and it roars away in a spray of dust and smoke._

" _Simon!" I yell, my voice cracking. But it's no use._

 _I sprint to the garage. My father owns a bunch of cars, but I can't find the keys to a single one. By the time I drive out to the dirt road leading to the city, Simon's out of sight. And I lose him._

" _But he'll be back," I mutter to myself. I'm not crying. I'm really not crying. "He'll come back."_

 _._

SIMON

I think about going back all the time. Well, not actually going back to his family's summer house and finding him sitting in the living room with a book, acting like things haven't changed. I think about that moment quite a bit. But I think about Baz a lot more. I talk to him sometimes, in my head.

 _How's the weather today?_

 _Oh, every day is dreary when you're not around._

They're mostly stuff like that, and sometimes stuff like this:

 _Simon Snow, I'm going to turn you into a vampire, and then you'll never have to worry about not having magic ever again because who needs magic when you can be immortal and with superspeed and superstrength?_

 _Baz, that's invaluably sweet._

 _Anytime, Snow. Anytime you want._

But I know he won't actually turn me, no matter how much he might mention it if we were still together. Because turning me into a vampire would mean turning himself into one, too. And I can't do that to him.

Since I went away, I've been working as a janitor at an elementary school. (Not a magickal school, of course. The only magickal school in England is Watford.) I have an excuse to wear baggy clothes now, at least, so I can hide my tail and wings easily. It's all incredibly Normal and predictable. The only thing I didn't like about magic was that it was so damn unpredictable—at least mine was.

 _That's absurd, Simon,_ Baz would say. _There are janitors everywhere. There are janitors at Watford._

It's not that bad of a job, really. When most people think of janitors they imagine a poor soul who has to clean up a kid's shit or throw-up, no doubt. But it's mostly mops and citrus air freshener. And it's lonely, but I can handle lonely.

I've also started writing children's stories under the name Ida Bunkins. They're about magic, if you couldn't guess, but it's magic in a world where everyone has magic, so no one looks at you weird if you can't cast a spell. The main character's named Ben, and he's got a magic lute he uses to chase away the Rapscallions (which are like the Humdrums of that world). He's the only magician left who can play magical music, and his lute is the only magical instrument left in the world. It makes him special, I guess.

Anyway, my publishers tell me the stories bring in quite a bit of dough, and I do my own illustrations, so that saves them the effort, too. I don't know what Baz would say if he read one of them — if there was ever a chance of him picking one up, which there probably isn't. I wonder if he could tell that I was the one writing them.

 _Are these invitations to your pity party, Snow?_

 _No, Baz. They're just children's stories._

 _Stories my ass. This is you whining about magic. Who needs fucking magic, anyway?_

 _I do. I need magic to come back._

 _Fuck magic. You can come back whenever you want. You can come back now._

 _I don't think I will._

 _Why not?_

Penelope helps me think of ideas. She's the only magician now who I (sometimes) talk to, even though she's moved to America. I tried to credit her as co-author once, but she found out and got her name taken off the book behind my back. So now I just dedicate every story to her. I write things like "for the girl who wore horn-rimmed glasses" (Penelope has contacts now) and "for the girl who taught me my first spell" and "for the girl who always knows what will happen next." Cheesy stuff like that.

But even with the dedications, I doubt Baz would recognize the books as mine. That is, assuming he ever reads them in the first place.

I miss Baz.


	2. Chapter 2

**hm... you know that feeling when you haven't been writing a story for a while and you forget the whole plot you had planned? anyways...**

* * *

BAZ

It's been twenty years.

It's like I fucking _blink_ and all of a sudden I'm twenty years older. I would have thought time at least would pass slower when you didn't have someone to pass it with. Father's dead, and my sisters are all married. Mother's starting to get her first grey hairs, bless her. I've aged gracefully, of course (I assume it's a trait of all vampires, although looking at Nicodemus Petty you wouldn't be able to tell). I bet Snow looks like a wet and wrinkled paper sack.

I had the strangest dream about him last night—Simon, I mean. There was a lady in white, with golden hair and colorless eyes, who appeared out of the swirling mists of the Thames. _Where's Simon_? she asked, over and over. _Where's Simon? Where's Simon? Where is he? Where is Simon?_

"I don't know," I told her. "He's not here anymore."

 _Where is Simon?_ the white lady repeated.

"He doesn't live here anymore. He hasn't been here in twenty years," I said.

 _Where is he?_

"I told you, I don't know! Try somewhere else."

 _He's not in the other place. It's so full of his aura, but he's not there. It's empty._

"Well, he's not here."

 _I can feel him here, just not as much._

"If you want, I can leave him a message for you."

 _There's no time… There's no time._

"What do you mean?"

 _If you see if him… If you see him you must tell him…_

"Tell him what?"

But there was nothing, and I sat up in my bed, the coldness of the river still coursing in my stomach.

"Tell him what?" I said to an empty room.

SIMON

Honestly, Penny's far too hospitable. I met her boyfriend, Micah—well, husband now, but when I met him he was still her boyfriend—more than ten years ago, and he didn't seem to like me very much. He's a nice bloke and all, but he's very clean. And I'm… well, you know, slovenly.

" _Can't you tell your friend to chew with his mouth shut?"_ he asked Penny one time at dinner. I was talking to Baz and he had said it quietly, but it's not like I don't have ears. I made a point never to open my mouth around him unless it was absolutely necessary after that.

But anyway, Penelope's invited me to go stay with her family. And Micah apparently hasn't protested, or maybe he doesn't know yet. Of course I said "Absolutely not, Penny" and "Are you mental?" but she threatened to buy my plane ticket, so I had to relent.

I'll be there for two months, because Penny insisted on my staying for Christmas.

It's not like anyone will miss me back home, anyway.

BAZ

The lady in white comes back again tonight.

 _Has he returned yet?_ she asks. _Is Simon here?_

"No," I say. "Go away."

 _Please,_ she says.

"He's not here anymore."

 _There's not much time._

"I don't care."

And then, she's suddenly dangling from the railing of a bridge. The river's rushing down beneath her, and I'm looking down at her white-knuckled hands.

 _Please. Help me._

"What if I don't want to?"

 _I can't hold on for much longer…_

I take a step back.

 _Find him… please find him. I have so much to say…_

She fades with the dream, and I wake up. I get dressed sluggishly and head down to breakfast. Mother's already waiting at the table.

"You're late," she says, wrapping her hands around her mug.

"I wasn't aware there was a schedule." I sit and fold my hands in my lap.

She spreads marmalade over her toast. "Did you speak to your father?"

I blink a few times. "Father is dead."

"I heard you talking in your sleep last night through the walls."

"Bad dream."

She inspects me like she would a chip in her nail. "I thought he would have visited you."

"What do you mean?"

Now she's raising an eyebrow (she's learned it from me, most likely). "You of all people should remember, Basilton."

"Well, I don't," I say, "so tell me."

She sighs in exasperation. "The Veil is lifting."

Of course. _Of course._

"Oh," I say. "Of course.

"Another thing, Basil."

 _Of course!_

"I've heard that Katalina Velasquez is in the market for a husband. Would you consider her as a potential suitor? I know you're very conscious about the age difference, but I figured fourteen years—"

I stand with such force that my chair flies back. (Sometimes I still forget about the vampire thing.) "Of course!" I shout to no one in particular, and I run back upstairs.

"Oh, what do I do? What do I do?" I mutter to my mirror, but it doesn't reply. The enchantment must have worn off. I don't bother with recasting **Magic mirror on the wall!** — a parlor trick, is all that is. Sometimes it helps me gather my thoughts when something talks back at me.

I can't stay here. This room is stifling. I pull open the windows and climb onto the ledge and jump to the pavement below (it's only a two-story fall). I start running, even though I'm not really sure where I'm headed.

All I know is that I'm going to find Simon Snow.

SIMON

Penny bombards me with questions at the airport. "How was your flight?" she asks. "Are you feeling okay?" "How are the books?" "Have you gotten out much like I told you last time we talked?"

"Good, Penny," I say. "Yes, Penny. Good, Penny. No, Penny."

If I get a dog one day, I'm going to name her Penny.

She introduces me to Mitch again, as if I've never met him, and we go pick up my luggage. I think fall asleep on the drive to their house (their _house_ , not flat) because when I open my eyes, I'm sitting on a sofa and there are three little faces looking up at me.

Penny's laughing. "I used a levitation spell to bring you inside," she says.

"Oh," I mutter blearily, and rub at my eyes. "Thank you."

I finally get a good look at her. She hasn't changed much—she's grown a little plumper, is all, and her eyes somehow seem brighter. Mitch is nearby, his arms crossed. He's a little stockier and a bit more stony than I remember, but I try to tell myself that he's stony with everyone.

Penny's two boys (they look like they must be twins) continue to stare at me, while the little girl crawls into my lap. "Hello," she says. "What's your name? Are you Simon Snow? Mummy says that you have wings. Can I see them?"

"Sure," I tell her, putting her hand to my shoulder. "You can feel them, right there."

She frowns. "That's stupid—"

"Myella, I've told you not to say that word—" Penny exclaims.

"But it _is_ stupid," Myella insists. "If I had wings, I would never wear shirts so that everyone could see them!"

I laugh. Penny's not quite sure what to say to that.

"Well, the Normals in Britain aren't so accepting," I tell her.

"Really?" Myella asks.

"Obviously not," says one of the boys. "He's never met a Normal from America, has he?"

"You're so stupid," quips the other boy, who sticks his tongue out at Myella.

Penny frowns at her children. "Mummy's going to make lunch. Do any of you want to help?"

"I'll help," I offer, sitting up straighter.

She sighs. "Honestly, Simon, you need to rest."

"I'm fine, really. I want to help." I stand and sidle between the children and couches toward the door that I hope leads to the kitchen. "Does anyone else want to come?"

"I do!" says Myella.

The boys look at each other and shrug. "I guess," mutters one. "We will," says the other.

Penny gives her husband a stern look. "You're making dinner."

Mitch flops down in front of the telly. "Deal," he says, then adds, "Tell Simon not to set anything on fire."

I give him a tentative smile, which he either doesn't see or chooses to ignore.

"Can we call you Uncle Simon?" Myella asks suddenly.

"Of course," I say at the same time Penny exclaims, "No!"

"Do you want to see my loose tooth, Uncle Simon?" Myella chirps.

"Well, if it doesn't bother you…" sighs Penny.

Once we migrate over to the kitchen, Myella wonders "if the tooth fairy will bother with a visit soon," and her brothers tell her "obviously not until the tooth's come out," and Penny gets out all of her pots and pans with a flick of her ring finger, and I'm suddenly lost because nothing feels familiar and everyone seems like they belong except for me. There's a middle-aged woman standing before me with her three children, and I'm just still Simon Snow, ordinary Simon Snow, who doesn't want life to go on, who doesn't want time to run out, who would stop the world from spinning if he could, and… everything's changed.

Everything's changed.


End file.
